What Is Kindle Unlimited, and Is It Worth It?

There are plenty of services that will let you consume as many TV shows, movies, and music as you want for a monthly fee. But what about books? Is there a streaming service for books? Meet “Kindle Unlimited.”

Some people can finish 10 seasons of a TV show in a weekend, others can motor through a dozen books a week. If you relate to the latter, Kindle Unlimited is for you. Let’s take a look at what this service has to offer.

A Streaming Service for Books

Technically, there’s nothing “streaming” about Kindle Unlimited, but that’s a good way to understand the service. It’s essentially the Netflix or Spotify of books, an extension of the “Prime Reading” service that’s included with a Prime membership.

It’s a pretty familiar concept. For a monthly fee, you get access to over two million eBooks, thousands of audiobooks, and up to three magazine subscriptions. You can read as many of these books as you’d like and cancel at any time.

The one caveat is the same as any other streaming service. You’re restricted to eBooks, audiobooks, and magazines from Amazon’s store. The good news is eBooks are not nearly as split between services as TV shows and movies. You should be able to find most titles in Kindle Unlimited.

"Kindle Unlimited" filter. — Desktop / Kindle app.

How do you find them? When you’re browsing the Amazon Store for books, there are a number of filters you can use. Whether you’re on the Amazon website or the Kindle app, you can select the “Kindle Unlimited” filter to see all the available eBooks in one place.

Do I Need a Kindle eReader to Use Kindle Unlimited?

With a name like “Kindle Unlimited,” you may wonder if you need an actual Kindle to use the service. Nope! Once you sign up for Kindle Unlimited, you can access all the eBooks, audiobooks, and magazines from Amazon’s free Kindle app.

The Kindle app is available for Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows, and Mac. eBooks that you add to your library can be accessed from this app on any of those devices, including Kindle eReaders, of course. The best thing is your progress is synced across devices as well.

How Much Does Kindle Unlimited Cost?

The biggest question with every streaming service is how much does it cost? Kindle Unlimited is $9.99 per month. Again, that gets you over two million eBooks, thousands of audiobooks, and up to three magazine subscriptions.

For comparison, that’s the same price (as of April 2022) as Netflix’s Basic plan and Spotify Premium for one person. If you do a lot of reading, that’s a reasonable price for all the books you could read. No trips to the library, sideloading books, or stressing over which books to shell out cash for.

Like any other monthly service, whether Kindle Unlimited is worth it or not will depend on how often you use it. Taking the price of eBooks into account, it wouldn’t take much to get your money’s worth for that $9.99. If you’re someone that finishes multiple books a month, it’s most likely a good investment.